The Mark of the Horse Lord (30 page)

‘A blind man has the advantage in the dark.’

‘
Midir!
Is it you indeed? – or your ghost?’

‘Did you think it might be my ghost, then?’

‘I – was not sure.’

‘Yet you came.’

‘I came.’

Hands came out of the darkness and fastened on his shoulders in the old familiar way; and they were warm and strong with life, as Phaedrus put his own up to cover them. ‘Feel. No ghost,’ Midir said.

After the first few moments, their meeting again had slipped into place so that Phaedrus felt it to be something not at all surprising, that had simply been waiting for them in the future, until the time came for it to happen. He still did not know whether he liked Midir, and he still knew that that did not matter, that far down at the root of things, they belonged together, as though perhaps they had been meant to come into the world as one person and had somehow got split up and come into it as two.

He said, ‘But I do not understand. How do you come to be here?’

‘You were easy enough to follow from the fort – I heard the way you went, and that gave me the start of the trail. Tired horses smell strong, and I had the smoke of your fire to guide me the last part of my way.’

‘
Sa
, that I see, but I was meaning, how do you come to be north of the Wall?’

‘My old master died, and still needing to eat now and then, I set out to find work for myself. Also I’d a mind to gain tidings if I could, of how this matter of the Horse Lord went, after we had taken so great pains with it. I came to Theodosia. There is always a welcome for a good leather-worker, wherever the Red Crests are. They were glad to see me in these parts.’ Midir’s tone changed. ‘And you? You are the Horse Lord sure enough –
ach
, I know: news travels on the wind in these parts. Beside, if the thing had gone against you, you would have been unpleasantly dead long before this, instead of standing here under my hands . . . But it seems that you have not yet taken my vengeance for me, as you promised.’

‘I will take it yet,’ Phaedrus said.

‘Maybe. Or maybe I will take it for myself, after all.’ There was a cold lingering softness in his voice that made something crawl in Phaedrus’s belly. But when Midir spoke again, his voice sounded as usual. ‘But I am wasting time, when there is little enough to spare. Listen, Phaedrus. The Fort Commander has sent word to the Signal Station across the Firth – the boat went at dusk. He has asked for a swift rowing-galley and an escort from the Wallsend Fort. And on tomorrow’s night-tide, they will send her across into Valentia.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Now you sound like a Red Crest. The British town that huddles under a fort generally knows more than the Fort Commander supposes.’

Phaedrus was silent a moment, then he burst out, ‘Fiends and Furies! I had hoped that they would at least have held her until some word came from the Legate or the Governor!’

‘It is in my mind that the Commander, Titus Hilarion, seeks to get her away quickly lest the Frontier goes up in flames with her still on his hands.’

Phaedrus was watching the pale swirl of the water. ‘The thing that is clear beyond all else,’ he said at last, ‘is that Liadhan must never set foot on board that galley.’

‘How many spears are there with you?’

‘Three-score, more or less.’

‘Not enough. Where is the rest of the War Host?’

‘Not at home eating honey-cakes!’ Phaedrus was up in arms on the instant to defend his own. ‘Dead, a good few of them. All summer we have been fighting; did
that
word not reach you? Three days since, we fought –
aiee!
quite a battle, and after, I could scarcely find three-score fit to bestride a horse, to ride this trail with me. Gault is bringing on all that he can raise, so soon as they and the horses can tell night from day, but flesh and blood is flesh and blood, for all the heart that’s in it. I doubt that they can be here for two days yet!’

Midir said softly, ‘Yes! I was right, I was right! Assuredly you are the Horse Lord, Phaedrus, my brother.’

‘At all events I sometimes catch myself believing that I am.’ For an instant memory flickered up in Phaedrus, of the little Dark Chieftain and his magic. ‘Do you think that I am not the Horse Lord?’ he had said; and the little man had replied:‘I do not know. But when you see that feather again, you will be.’ But it was gone at once, leaving no more trace than the golden plover’s feather in the narrow dark hand.

For a long moment there was no sound between them save the liquid running of the burn and the small night-time stirrings of the forest.

Then Phaedrus said abruptly, ‘For the thing that must be done, I am thinking that one man might stand a better chance than a whole War Host.’

‘Two men, anyway,’ Midir said, and from his tone, Phaedrus knew that he had been thinking along the same lines.

‘Two?’

Another silence. Then Midir broke it, speaking in short quick bursts with long pauses between, as though he were thinking the thing out as he went along. ‘Listen now; this could be the way of it. The galleys will not put in until well after dark and if they will wait for dark to put in, that can only mean that they intend sailing again before dawn. At dusk, you must send in—’ He checked. ‘Have you a good dirk-thrower with you?’

Phaedrus’s mind had caught the direction now. ‘One or two,’ he said, and then, ‘One, at least.’

‘
Sa;
at dusk, then, send him in. In the general run of things, they do not keep guards down there; there’s not much to guard, in empty galley sheds and broken-down jetties, and they’d find it none so easy if they tried, with the town spreading into the dockyard all along the northern edge of the harbour and the fisherfolk storing their nets in the ruins, and no man to say where one begins and the other ends. But it is in my mind they’ll have a guard posted tomorrow night!’

‘And how does our dirk-thrower get through?’

‘Ach – I leave that to you – to him. Choose a man who is used to stalking game, and he’ll find a way through.’

‘So. And then?’

‘There’s only one way down the rock on the seaward side – very steep – so steep at the bottom that it ends in a wooden stair. They must bring her that way; even the Red Crests would not be fool enough to take her out by the Praetorian Gate and half-circle round through the town. There are the remains of store-sheds and the like close up to the stair foot on the north side – good enough cover, well within knife range. Let your man lie up there, and when she comes to the foot of the stair – they are bound to have a torch or two to light her down – that will be the time for him to throw – and to pray that he throws straight!’

There was a little silence; and in the midst of the silence, somewhere away in the trees, the small, sharp sound of a snapping twig.

The two froze as they stood, hearts suddenly racing. ‘What was that?’ Phaedrus whispered, and the other’s hand tightened on his shoulder.

‘Listen.’

For what seemed an hour, they stood listening, every nerve on the stretch. But there was nothing more to hear but the little night-time rustlings and sighings of the woods behind them. At last Midir let his breath go with a little sigh. ‘Nothing.’

‘I will be going to make sure.’

‘How?’ Midir said.

No, there was no way of making sure – and no need, he had heard such little, sharp, unexplained sounds often before now. ‘The dry summer has made the forest noisy with dead twigs.’

They listened a moment longer, all the same, then returned urgently to the point where they had broken off.

‘I’d not say it was a good plan,’ Phaedrus said, ‘but it’s possible, and I can’t think of a better. It has one sore spot in it, though – it will be death to the man with the dirk.’

‘Surely, if he were alone. That is where the second man comes in – to draw off the hunt.’

‘I was forgetting about the second man,’ Phaedrus said. ‘Well, do I send him in with the other?’

‘
Na
,
you
do not send him in at all. I shall wander in to talk with the fishermen when they bring in the catch at evening – it won’t be the first time – and find means to go to ground until the time comes.’

‘You?’ Phaedrus said.

‘Why not? They will not see my face when I run from them. I know that ground well; with luck I shall lead them a fair way before I fall over anything – maybe farther than they will go themselves; torches are unsure light for a chase. They will not know me, until they capture me, for the blind leather-worker from the town.’

‘And when they do capture you?’

‘I shall have a fine excuse. See now: I went down to talk with the fishermen and bargain for a fish for my supper. I was tired, and the air thunder heavy; and I crawled into a corner and fell asleep. The sudden uproar woke me, and I was frightened. A sudden uproar is a frightening thing to a blind man, my Phaedrus – and I ran.’

‘It holds together,’ Phaedrus said slowly.

‘Surely, it holds together.’

‘But it would be madness for you to try it, Midir – don’t you see—’

Midir cut in. ‘No, I don’t see – I don’t see; that’s what you mean, isn’t it? You are not believing that I can do the thing, because I am blind! I know what I can do, better than you can! If any man of yours does it, he will die; there is no escape round the south side of the rock. But I can do it and like enough live to tell the tale – not that that greatly interests me just now . . . Also, it is my right. My right to have a small share in my own vengeance, and maybe a small share in saving the tribe also.’ He broke off, and added in a tone of deliberate lightness, ‘It is strange that I should trouble about that. Long ago I ceased to feel that I belong to them. But I still do not want to see the Dalriads trampled into the mud.’

‘Just as I have come to feel that I belong to them, and they to me. I also would not see the Dalriads go down.’ Phaedrus broke off, and was silent a moment. ‘Come then, and take your rightful share.’ And checked again. ‘I am not liking it, this slaying-in-the-dark, but it must be done; it is her life or the tribe’s –
it must be done!
’

‘It must be done,’ Midir said.

A low, long-drawn mutter of thunder trembled into the silence. The woods seemed to have grown very still, and in the stillness the voice of the burn sounded unnaturally loud. ‘The storm is coming,’ Midir said. ‘Phuh! There is no air to breathe.’

‘It is as though the woods knew it – and were waiting.’

They stood together, a short while longer, quickly going over the few remaining details, then parted without any leave-taking, Midir turning back towards the bothy-town that huddled at the foot of Theodosia Rock, Phaedrus heading up the glen once more.

Another thread of the finishing pattern had been woven into place.

It was not until he caught the first flicker of the watch fire through the trees, that he realized that Midir had asked no word of anyone, not even of Conory. He was puzzled for the moment, and then he understood that here, so near his own people, who were so completely lost to him, his only hope lay in not asking, not wanting to know. ‘Long ago I ceased to feel that I belong to them,’ he had said; and that was his armour.

He whistled to warn the Companions of his coming and men were afoot and faces turned to him as he came into the fire-light. Finn began a question, and then stopped; no one else spoke, but the question was in all their faces, and Phaedrus answered it. ‘No, no ghost. An old friend of mine who I did not know was north of the Wall – a leather-worker in the town, who slipped out with news for me.’

‘Why did he not come up to the camp?’ Dergdian asked.

‘Maybe he had no wish to risk getting caught up with the War Host of the Dalriads; it was only me that he had his news for.’ Phaedrus squatted down on his haunches well back from the fire, but near enough for the smoke to keep the midges away; and sitting with his arms folded across his knees, told them of what had passed between himself and Midir – or at least as much of it as they needed to know.

When he came to the end, Dergdian, the oldest and most cautious among them, said, ‘It is in my mind to wonder what price the Red Crests may demand, for the slaying of a Goddess under their protection.’

Phaedrus had thought of that, too. ‘Liadhan means little to the Red Crests, and her slaying will mean little, save that by it we shall have set their authority at nought, and that they will
not
like . . . If the luck runs our way, they may never even be able to prove that the dirk came from the Dalriads. If they do, they will maybe march north to teach us more respect for our betters. Then we shall drive off the cattle and horse-herds – giving thanks to Lugh Shining Spear that we are not a corn-growing people rooted to our fields – and take to the hills and islands, and play wolf-pack on their flanks until winter turns them south again. They may burn down a hall here and there, but thatch and turf and timber are none so hard to replace; at the worst, they may burn off what they can of the pasture. But there’s rain coming soon. When the storm breaks, the weather will break with it. If Liadhan lives and has her way with them, if they march north to thrust her back into the Royal Place and hold her there with their swords, as they did in the earlier days for that other She-Wolf Cartimandua, that will be another – a darker, story.’

All round the fire, men’s voices answered him quick and fierce, eyes red-sparked with an old anger above the rims of their shields.

‘
Sa
, it is well thought out,’ Dergdian said. ‘Then it seems there is only one question left to settle: who is the best dirk-thrower among us?’

The Companions glanced at each other. Niall began, ‘I—’

But Phaedrus said, ‘I am.’ He looked round at them in the fire-light. ‘The throwing-knife is not really our weapon, here in the North, but one learns strange skills in the Gladiators’ School.’

Niall said quickly, ‘My Lord Midir, I did not learn it in the Gladiators’ School, but I’ve a fair aim with a dirk, none the less. Let me go.’

‘No.’ Phaedrus said. He looked at face after protesting face. ‘I am the best dirk-thrower round this fire tonight; it is as simple as that. Also – this is a matter between Liadhan and me.’